Design and development of electronics has steadily been following a downsizing trend ever since Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel® corporation, suggested in 1965 that the transistor density (hence computing power) of a given chip area doubles roughly every 24 months, in a somewhat prophetic assertion that has become widely known as “Moore's Law.” Medical devices and apparatus are no exception to the trend of electronics miniaturization. Microelectronics are often employed as sensors for providing diagnostic feedback on routine patient status, such as for sensing pulse, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and fetal vitals during childbirth.
During surgical procedures, sensing often extends to drive mechanisms for surgical instruments, such as an orthoscopic shaver or cutter systems. Orthoscopic surgical devices (and other endoscopic devices) perform minimally invasive procedures through apertures (holes) that provide access to a surgical field, in contrast to traditional open surgery that requires an incision along the entire surgical field. Orthoscopic procedures, therefore, often occur in confined spaces inside the abdominal cavity of a patient, using elongated probes of the orthoscopic surgical instruments. These instruments often require precise manipulation to navigate the narrow clearances of the surgical field. Accordingly, orthoscopic surgical devices and instruments avoid bulky and/or unwieldy design which may interfere with precise manipulations of the surgeon.